Independent Day School raises $4,000 for Warm the Children

JONETTA BADILLO

Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, January 4, 2012

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Principal John Barrengos, Menelik Nesmith, Fin Dwyer, Chairman of Warm the Children Lynn Baldoni, Founder Mack Stewart, (in front) Tracey Reynolds, Lauren Farrell and Director of Service Learning Katie Thibodeau all gather as a check for $ 3,878.85 is presented to organization members to help children in need from the Middletown area. less

MIDDLEFIELD-- The students and staff at Independent Day School raised close to $4,000 to help Warm the Children buy winter clothes for about 600 underprivileged children of the Middletown area.

For over a decade, the school has participated in different fundraisers each year to support the individuals whom Warm the Children serve.

Founded in 1988, Warm the Children is a co-operative effort of a newspaper and the communities it serves, acting alone or in partnership with a local charity, which provides new winter clothing for the children of needy families. In Middletown, The Middletown Press and the Kiwanis partner to raise the funds.

"When I started Warm the Children, it was my intention that it be a community effort with a lot of people in the community doing things to help their neighbors who have a need," Mack Stewart, the founder of the organization and former published for the Press, said Wednesday. "I can't imagine a better example of how a community steps forward and helps."

A brief check presentation was held Wednesday at 8:15 a.m. in the auditorium of the school, located at 115 Laurel Rd.

Through countless read-a-thons and many other school activities, students managed to raise $3,878. 85, which left the organization short a little over $2,000 of their $56,000 goal.

The donations collected by the students will help three times the amount of children who attend Independent Day, Principal John Barrengos said Wednesday. However, according to Stewart, there are about 3,500 children who are defined as needy in the Middletown area.

Katie Thibodeau, director of service learning, said the school typically starts collecting donations for Warm the Children in the very beginning of each school year, which coincides with the articles that run in the news columns and "house ads," at the start of the fall season asking monetary donations to the organization's fund.

This year, the school's theme was homelessness and hunger in children, Thibodeau said. What's unique about Independent Day is that community service is connected to its curriculum, the director said.

"The social curriculum is just as important as the academic curriculum," she said. "The more you give, the more you get."

Fifth grade student, Menelik Nesmith and first grader, Finn Dwyer helped to raise $800 by getting pledges from friends of both grades to read books together for one hour.

"Thank you to everyone who supported us in reaching our goal," Dwyer said.

Raising about $600, Lauren Farrell, of fourth grade and kindergartener, Tracey Reynolds, also encouraged students of both classes to participate in a read-a-thon to help give back to underprivileged children during the winter season.

The young three year-olds even got an opportunity to participate by collecting spare change and students in pre-kindergarten collected mittens.

"People had a chance to buy decorations for their home for the holidays, people had mitten trees, read-a-thons, a lot of us gave clothes that were gently used and all of this came together into one big project that helped Warm the Children," Barrengos said.

In addition to the money collected by the students of the school, Stewart said the organization depends heavily on individual small donations.

"Small donations constitute for about 80 percent of money raised," the founder said. "We wouldn't succeed without them. The readers of the Press are also very important and generous."

Stewart emphasized that the entire Warm the Children program is ran by volunteers and no money donated goes in the pockets of the administration.

In order to determine how the funds are distributed, staff at local elementary and middle schools identify children who come from needy families. The organization then tells each school how many children they can serve and are provided with the family's contact information. Each family chosen is assigned to a volunteer shopper who refers to him or her on a first name basis, Stewart said.

The founder said family and the shopper then must come to a mutual agreement on when they can meet to go shopping to exclusively buy clothing and footware. All of 140 volunteer shoppers usually meet their selected families at Walmart where they shop together for clothing items.

"Some families feel uncomfortable because they've never been on the receiving end before," Stewart said. "But the shopper's job is to make the family feel comfortable."

Though he is the founder, Stewart also physically shops with the families as well.

"I think it's important for the people who run the program to get in the trenches and do the shopping so you know what families encounter," he said

A family that has children from age two through 15 will receive $80 to spend, while a those with infant get $40. Some children have been serviced multiple years, so the organization tries to make first-timers priority when creating their yearly lists.

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"It's extraordinary to have something normalized," Barrengos said. "Three, six and seven year-olds know it's normal to help people. It's the idea of getting practice in living great values so when when they go on to high school they will go in confident and curious with nothing stopping them."